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Blizzard Warns Diablo 3 Hackers and Cheats

It appears Blizzard is preparing to deliver its first round of Diablo 3 permabans.

That whooshing you hear is the sound of Blizzard spinning its mighty Ban Hammer of the Ancients, Thor-with-Mjolnir style. The studio has issued a stern warning that indicates a sizable number of hackers and cheats are about to be struck down and permabanned from Diablo 3.

Posting on the official Diablo 3 blog, Blizzard states that the use of hacks, cheats, bots, mods, or exploits in any form goes against the D3 end user license agreement. And if you're in violation of the EULA, you risk being permanently banned from the game. Given that Diablo 3 must be played through Blizzard's servers, even for the single-player campaign, that makes this particular ban especially potent.

"Playing Diablo III legitimately means playing with an unaltered game client," Blizzard states. "Doing otherwise violates our policies for Battle.net and Diablo III, and it goes against the spirit of fair play that all of our games are based on. We strongly recommend that you avoid using any hacks, cheats, bots, or exploits. Suspensions and bans of players that have used or start using cheats and hacks will begin in the near future."

The warning comes on the eve of the launch of the Diablo 3 Real-Money Auction House. Last we heard, Blizzard hoped to have it up and running today. So if you planned to exploit your way to real-world riches, well, good luck with that.

UPDATE: And we're off. Posting on the Diablo 3 forums this morning, Blizzard announced that "several thousand" players have been suspended and banned.